Tag Archives: lloyd dangle

(Pittsburgh) A few days ago I was in Rome, now I’m in Pittsburgh. My serotonin level is in freefall. No, Pittsburgh’s nice, really! The frutti di mare is good here. It’s the jet lag and the hemorrhoidal bonfire in my ass that make me want to die. And my VISA bill.
I asked an emaciated 70-year-old Pittsburghian taxi driver, Troy, whether the city was doing okay. He said that the unemployment rate was 7%, a point lower than the US average, that they never had a housing bubble here, and that manufacturing jobs have been gone for so long that nobody even remembers them. Pittsburgh is the Germany of America! Contrast that with Spain where the unemployment rate is 24.6% and the rate for under-25s is––holy-crap––53%. We had a situation like that once. They called it the Great Depression and it left a whole generation of Americans so damaged that they have a nervous breakdown every time they have to leave a tip. Eso es desagradable, Jack!
Read more on Around The World With Lloyd Dangle: Austerity’s A Bitch And Then You Die…

(Rome) I just finished a perfectly-prepared sardine antipasti, caprese salad, and a plate of grilled calamari. The wine was a Pinot Grigio from the area. Nice. It’s hot as hell here, but a breeze is blowing off Palatine Hill, where Romulus and Remus suckled the she-wolf. When I close my eyes I can almost hear the ancient Romans in the Coliseum cheering as a Christian is eaten by lions. But the only thing being devoured around here these days is the country of Italy itself, in an economic free fall, its middle class chewed up like prosciutto on a dry panini and its hope for the future spoiling like tiramisu in the sun. I’ve been talking to people all over, gondoliers, bartenders, street barkers, nuns. I don’t speak Italian but I find if I talk loud and use a fake Italian accent they understand me perfectly. I keep telling these poor uneducated bastards what we in America have learned from the Tea Party. A country, I explain, is just like a family sitting around the dinner table figuring out its household budget. If the family is spending more than it’s taking in then it’s time for some good, old-fashioned belt-tightening. I tell them, stop being such whiners and get behind the ECB-IMF-Merkel-Tea Party solution of austerity, structural adjustment, and “internal devaluation.” My words are often received with a rousing cheer of, “bafangool!” which means “thank you for the wisdom!” Read more on Around The World With Lloyd Dangle: Tea Party Lessons For The Whores Of Rome…

(Zurich) The train to DeGaulle Airport was so hot that the wine I drank the night before poured out of me like water from the Fontaine Saint-Michel. My shirt was soaked and my deodorant was failing, and soon I would be seated inches from another passenger on an hour-long Swiss Air flight to Zurich. I bought a bottle of cologne shaped like the Eiffel Tower from the duty free shop and doused my armpits in the men’s room. Everything was okay at first but soon my eyes began to water and I realized that I smelled like a walking urinal deodorizer.
My European journey began as an attempt to get to the bottom of the festering debt crisis, but now I was
taking a detour to Switzerland––hardly even considered a PART of Europe––to embark on an investigation of a purely domestic nature. I was on the trail of Mitt Romney’s money. Read more on Around The World With Lloyd Dangle: On The Trail Of Mitt’s Money…

(Paris) Ah, the enchantment –– the boulevards, the catacombs, the long lines of tourists, the little dogs and the charming messes they leave on the pavement. I’m here in The City of Light wearing my red-white-and-blue monster truck cap with the words “American Debt Crisis Observer” embroidered on it. In the sidewalk cafes I notice the French people shying away from me, due, obviously, to their deep embarrassment over the crisis and their inability to speak perfect English. I assure them that even though I’m visiting from the country most loved by God I’m not here to pass judgement.
French people generally agree that the Greeks are irresponsible mouth-breathers who don’t like to work but love to spend the money they borrowed recklessly from well-intentioned banks (just like Floridians). So they deserve to have their minimum wage cut by 20%, their government workers fired by the thousands, their pensions raided, their small businesses bankrupted, and their suicide rate up 40%. Take that, lazy souvlaki eaters! Welcome to what we call the lesson of Wisconsin. Read more on Around The World With Lloyd Dangle: How The European Debt Crisis Is Like Grease Through A Goose…

Things may suck here in the United States, but they’re wayyyy screwed in Europe. Chancellors, Presidents, Prime Ministers, Kings and Dukes have been convening summits weekly trying to figure out what to do about the hemorrhaging debt crisis. The steps taken so far, bailing out Portugal, Ireland, Greece and now Spain have been the kind of foot-dragging, head-burying half-measures that have long given Europeans the reputation for being pussies. It even made President Obama wag his finger disapprovingly and give them a nasty scolding. It could be, as the Wall Street Journal imaginatively called it, Europe’s ‘Last Chance Saloon’ when the gunslingers meet later this week in Brussels. With the Germans being total dicks about the whole situation, anything short of a miracle will likely result in credit defaults, total disintegration of the European Union, upheaval in the bond markets, runs on banks, hyper-inflation, and a global financial meltdown on a scale not seen since the 1930s, if ever.
Thankfully I’m aboard a jet to The Continent right now –– intrepid cartoonist, journalist –– with my comfy docksiders, sketchbooks, and an iPad full of language translation apps –– on exclusive assignment for your Wonkette. There’ll be a lot of hard drinking and risky behavior of the type that goes on in any world hot spot during civilization changing events, but presumably I’ll have an endless supply of good coffee and buttery croissants so it won’t exactly be Syria. I’ll be giving you micro and macro lessons in global economics while on the ground revealing the horrors faced by your average cheese-shoveling Parisienne, your indebted goat-herding Greek, your bureaucratic Italian ticket-taker, and your hyper-efficient tightened-butt-cheeks German hersteller. Read more on Around The World With Lloyd Dangle At The End Of The World…